Podunk Wild Heart

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My Tattler lids arrived! And in good time as well! I have 25# of "juicing" carrots sitting on my kitchen floor waiting to be canned and oooh say 10# of apples (about) For Christmas Eve breakfast I had crockpot apple butter making ( I used this as a guide to make it: http://www.simplycanning.com/canning-apple-butter.html) and everyone seems to really love it. I used 75% Fuji's and 25% Granny Apple Smith's. It came out just barely sweet enough-even my extra picky 2 year old loves this apple butter However it seems like a full crockpot makes about 3 pints finished and 2 went to my inlaws on Christmas Eve. In light of how fast the remaining pint is being gobbled I may make more and break out both my full sized crockpots (I have 2 full sized crockpots and one that holds 3 smaller wells for appetizers). All in all-resounding success, so good it didn't even make it to being canned

Christmas has come and passed, as has my 5th anniversary with my husband and my youngest's first birthday. I can't believe how fast the years go. We had modest celebrations with good food and lots of love for all of the above and I can honestly say this year the Holidays have been truly wonderful. This was our first Christmas in our own house and I loved it so much! Each of the kids got quilts and we all got many books. I got "The Joy of Pickling" and a perfect little wood bread slicer guide for when I start making all our own breads-something I aspire to do-and I found a perfect little percolator coffee maker I gave my husband for when he feels like old fashioned cowboy coffee. And then there is what my parents got us oh my I am over the moon with excitement! They got us a nice builders hammer, a really nice tape measure, a circular saw and a sawzall!!! I cannot emphasize how incredibley exiting that is to me. They taught me to read as a child and fed my love of books and now as an adult to give me the tools to BUILD is the best gift I could ever dream of so now I feel like I can create just about anything First up is likely to be nicer rabbit nestboxes and shelves for our books, my fabric and sewing supplies, and canned goods. Then baby gates...either from cutting wood doors in half or making ones dutch barn style like this http://www.remodelaholic.com/2012/09/diy-barn-door-baby-for-stairs/ I love the solidity so my clever littles won't be able to shove things in between bars or slats and ruin them.

Sort of speaking of rabbits and nestboxes-our Californian doe had a litter of 8 on Christmas Eve but due to various things she is down to 5 kits today and a big part of that is why I want to build better nestboxes. Deeper then what I have to accomadate her size; with a roof/ledge on top for her to hop on and keep the kits from getting stepped on, and with an inverted angled lip so when she hops out of the box and kits are still attatched to her nipples while nursing they won't get drug out of the nestbox to get cold and die. While I really hope she doesn't lose any more I feel like it is likely...it makes me so sad both with the loss of life but because these kits are my "pool" of which I need to keep the biggest fastest growing doe to expand my little meat herd. I really want better mothering instincts -raising only half of a litter or less is just not optimal and I need them to be optimized to feed my family and my pets.

Our Florida White doe is getting her nestbox just in time for the new year, it is her second litter (all of the first died) so I am hoping for much better success for her this time around. These will be purebred pedigreed Florida White kits as opposed to the above mentioned litter which is Californian/Florida White crosses. I am hoping I might sell a few to offset the cost of cages and feed but wouldn't mind the cooking practice either

I also picked up that second batch of cloth diapers and washed them today actually using a diy cloth diaper safe detergent (recipe here: http://theecofriendlyfamily.com/2009/08/cloth-diaper-detergent/) I had to wash them, strip them (get rid of previous owner gookies and soaps/oils/residues) and wash them again. I know it is a great deal and I am still delighted but they were not taken care of as carefully as they could have been from what I have read...they had stains and a very certain strong aroma that I got out quickly but did put me aback for a minute. After looking all of them over I accepted the challenge and they are now perfectly clean and good smelling *happy dance* that detergent works well enough on those I used it on my regular laundry and it has been great with that too! I only made a little batch as the blogger suggests to try it out but I will likely make more when I run out of my mini batch.

Anyways, toodaloo dears. The youngest will be up in a couple hours so I must go try to get some sleep now that I have rambled a bit on here.

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas Happy Holidays and will have an great New Year's!

Tattler is having a one day sale today! 50% off their lids and rings with the code "madness"

I came across their post about the sale on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/reusablecanninglids" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://https://www.facebook.com/reusablecanninglids and turned it over in my head...now is really a bad time to be spending so much but at the same time they are reusable! I just got some metal ones from Walmart a couple days ago for holiday canning but I did just tell everyone I wanted a serger and Tattler lids for Christmas for myself. So I ordered a 300 regular mouth lids and rings, and 100 wide mouth lids and rings. Shipping is free in the US so I didn't have to worry about that cost.

I think this is a good start...definately not enough if I plan to can a year or two's supply of food for 4-5 people but great for starting! I have many water bath canning pots I use for various things as well as canning jams, jellies, and pickled items. And I was given a pressure canner that I need to get tested at my local extension office.

An good useful purchase I think How many reusable lids do you have? How many do you think are neccisary for a family of 4-5?